There has been an increasing need for higher temperature elastomers that perform adequately at for example, temperatures of 200° C. to 330° C. Because of the higher bond energy of the C—F bond, perfluoroelastomers (fully fluorinated molecules) traditionally have been used at these extreme temperature conditions. However the cost of perfluoroelastomers can make them undesirable or prohibitive for certain applications and markets.
Partially fluorinated elastomers are typically less expensive than perfluorinated elastomers and because they comprise some fluorine, they can perform adequately in some of the same extreme conditions as the perfluorinated elastomers, e.g., chemical resistance, etc. However, one area where partially fluorinated elastomers do not perform as well as their perfluorinated counterparts is in high temperature sealing applications that require good compression set resistance at elevated temperatures (e.g higher than 200° C.).